Professionalism - professional development and collaboration 

(classroom

research project)

Standard #9: Professional Learning and Ethical Practice The teacher engages in

ongoing professional learning and uses evidence to continually evaluate his/her

practice, particularly the effects of his/her choices and actions on others (learners,

families, other professionals, and the community), and adapts practice to meet the

needs of each learner.

 Standard #10: Leadership and Collaboration

The teacher seeks appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to take

responsibility for student learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues,

other school professionals, and community members to ensure learner growth, and to

advance the profession

In the last five years working for my school district I have had what feels like

a career’s worth of experiences. I have been head teacher for the past four years,

taught every grade from preschool to 12th grade (with the exception of 6th grade),

taken students on multiple trips out of the village, attended numerous off-site

teacher inservices (i.e. Kasitsna Bay Lab outside of Homer), and participated in the

two year Alaska State Mentor Project. One of the reasons why I chose this position

at my school is because it would require me to take on numerous responsibilities

and challenge me to grow. Through working at this district, coupled with my

graduate studies at University of Alaska, Southeast (UAS), I have been able to

develop professionally in many ways. In this paper, I will look at the areas of self-
evaluation as practiced in my school district, as well as using and doing research in

my university studies.

Each year there are numerous ways that help me to grow and evaluate my

teaching within the practices of my school district. One thing I really appreciate

about my district’s administrators is the focus on evaluation being a tool for

teachers to refine and expand their own teaching. Evaluation is more about

personal growth that will benefit the students than about judgement from an

administrator. Perrone (1991) describes the ideal form of accountability:

Policymakers at all levels, however, are beginning to rethink the way

accountability systems work, understanding increasingly that they reduce

the decision-making potential of those in schools and may well be influencing

negatively the directions of curricular and pedagogical practices. This is

providing an opening for teachers to develop at the school at the school level

accountability processes worthy of the name, processes that are rooted

principally in their instructional programs, not apart from them, and

which can benefit students as they inform teachers. (p. 69)

Two of my yearly self-evaluation practices are PIER plans and my yearly evaluation.

This artifact is a PIER plan from two years ago that focused on how our school could

positively engage the community amid COVID-19. Each year teachers are required

to do a minimum of one individual PIER plan and be part of a school-wide PIER plan;

PIER stands for Plan, Implement, Evaluate, Refine. This planning led to me

expanding ways in which our school interacts with the village, including an annual

Thanksgiving Parade and Christmas caroling. Even the yearly evaluation done by
my principal involves my speaking for about 90% of the time; he listens to me

evaluate myself, then gives short feedback after each section. This self-evaluation

has been beneficial to my teaching practice, and in turn to my students.

This artifact is a research project I conducted with a student two years ago,

as part of my UAS Master of Elementary Education degree. The project was entitled

“Effects of Increasing Reading Fluency Using Six-Minute Solution® on One Student’s

Reading Comprehension and View of Himself as a Reader.” One area that my

university studies have helped me is in the area of being intentional about

consulting research. I wonder how often a classroom teacher consults research

when determining his or her classroom practice. Although it can be challenging to

think of consulting, or doing, research in the midst of a busy school year, it is

important to be intentional about making the time to do so. Maxine Greene (1973)

states:

Teaching is purposeful action . . . intentions will inevitably be affected by the

assumptions [a teacher] makes regarding human nature and human

possibility. Many of these assumptions are hidden; most have never been

activated. If he is to achieve clarity and full consciousness, the teacher must

attempt to make such assumptions explicit; for only then can they be

examined, analyzed, and understood. (p. 69-70)

Before beginning this study, I had been thinking and trying various methods of

helping this student both with his reading fluency and reading comprehension. I

had met with his mother and the student to discuss their thoughts and things they

might do at home. In my experience, learning goals are more likely to succeed when
a student and the parents are partners with the teachers. This class provided me a

perfect opportunity to look more in-depth at how the student, parents, and I might

be able to help him. Before starting the study, I made sure both the student and the

parent agreed to the plan. This ended up being even more important than I had

initially planned as COVID-19 emerged that semester and students no longer

attended in-person at our school. Without the commitment from the student and

parents the study would not have happened.

It was encouraging to hear that some practices I had done before I started the

study were backed by research, such as “oral reading fluency demonstrated a

significant relationship with reading comprehension” (Pinnell et al., 1992, p. 2).

When a mother of a different student asked me a few years ago why it mattered how

fluently her son read, I think I responded well; yet now I have read concrete

evidence from a study to the value of reading fluency. The National Reading Panel

(2000) study found that there was significant evidence that guided reading

developed fluency. This last year my class did 15-20 minutes of out-loud guided

reading as a group every day. Over the last two year, the student from my study has

made significant gains on the DRA2 assessment (Beaver, 2006); the DRA2

assessment is a timed read-a-loud that records the number of mistakes made while

reading a passage. Whereas two years ago he was a little over a full grade behind on

these assessments, he now is scoring on the lower end of grade level.

The driving force behind all professional development should be student

learning; it should make you a more effective teacher. I have often thought one of

the biggest things that makes a good elementary teacher is that he or she cares
about students, and therefore cares about their learning. This caring leads the

teacher to work hard to be their best. Right now, I have strong desire to become a

better teacher, in order to give my students the best possible educational experience

within my classroom. Hopefully, this desire to get better will stay with me

throughout my teaching career, and I will continue to look for professional

development opportunities and do honest self-evaluation to improve my teaching.

 References

Beaver, J. (2006). DRA2: Developmental reading assessment. Celebration Press.

Greene, M. (1973). The teacher as stranger: Educational philosophy for the modern

age. Wadsworth.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Report of the national reading panel- teaching children

to read: An evidence-based assessment on the scientific research literature on

reading and its implications for reading instruction. National Institute of Child

Health and Human Development.

Perrone, V. (1991). A letter to teachers: Reflections on schooling and the art of

teaching. Josey Bass Publishing.

Pinnell, G. S., Pikulski, J. J., Wixson, K. K., Campbell, J. R., Gough, P. B., & Beatty, A. S.

(1995). Listening to children read aloud. Office of Educational Research and

Improvement, U. S. Department of Education.